1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a module IC (Integrated Circuit) handler used to test a module IC that has been manufactured, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus for picking up a module IC from a customer tray of the module IC handler, including a picking-up means for picking up the module IC.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
Typically, a module IC refers to a structure provided with a substrate whose one side or both sides are used for fixedly mounting a plurality of ICs and electric components, for example, by soldering, and have the capability of extending their respective capacities when they are coupled to a mother substrate.
Such a module IC provides higher added-value when sold, compared with the separate, individual sale of each IC as a final product. For this reason, IC manufacturers tend to develop module ICs as main products and sell them as such.
However, module ICs on the market are relatively expensive and therefore require higher reliability. This requires passing strict quality tests; i.e, passing only products determined to be good, and discarding all module ICs determined not to be good.
Transfer of module ICs between the various processes required for manufacturing a module IC is accomplished with a customer tray 1, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and the module ICs can be safely maintained in the customer tray.
However, each insertion slot 2 provided inside of customer tray 1 has a much wider width relative to the width of a module IC 3.
This configuration of customer tray 1 is fixed and is used to accommodate various kinds of module ICs whose widths may be different for each kind of module IC, and to maintain the ICs therein.
Further, module ICs may be supplied in packages of customer trays 1 containing test-finished module ICs therein, to reduce manufacturing costs.
To produce the customer tray 1 at a low cost, the customer tray is not injection molded, but rather it is vacuum-molded. However, this yields bad precision for insertion slots 2.
When module ICs 3 to be tested are accommodated in customer tray 1, the module ICs 3 are placed in insertion slots 2 with arbitrarily different inclinations of the ICs 3, as shown in FIG. 2, due to the distinct configuration of customer tray 1. The distances, for example, t1, t2 and t3 in FIG. 2, between the inserted module ICs may be different from each other. Therefore, fingers 5 of a plurality of picking-up means 4 (see FIG. 4), with an interval between the fingers being constant for each picking-up means, do not match the above distances.
For this reason, a test tray 6 as shown in FIG. 3 needs to be employed, which is made to a high precision in order to permit testing of a module IC.
With the use of such a test tray 6, the operator has to manually pick up the module ICs inserted in slots 3 of customer tray 1, and then insert the module ICs into insertion slots 7 provided inside of test tray 6. Furthermore, an operator must then place test tray 6 at a loading position in the handler. This causes a problem in that operation efficiency is lowered.
Further, production of an extra test tray 6 is necessitated, which raises manufacturing costs, and which prevents easy use of customer tray 1 in an unloading position. Also, there is a problem in that the handler must be increased in size.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a picking-up means that directly picks up a manufactured module IC from a customer tray, and then loads it into a carrier or a test socket at a test site.
In order to accomplish the above object, there is provided, in a module IC handler using a customer tray, a method for picking up module ICs contained in the customer tray, the method comprising the steps of: placing the customer tray containing the module ICs to be tested on a rotating table disposed at a loading position; inclining the rotating table in one direction by an inclination amount to thereby incline the module ICs contained in the customer tray in the same direction as the table; rotating a picking-up means from an initial non-inclined state by a rotation amount equivalent to the inclination amount of the rotating table; picking up module ICs from the customer tray with the picking-up means, and returning the picking-up means to the initial non-inclined state; loading the picked-up module IC into a carrier or a test socket; and repeating the rotating, picking up and loading steps until all module ICs have been removed from the customer tray.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided, in a module IC handler using a customer tray, an apparatus for picking up module ICs contained in the customer tray, the apparatus comprising: a rotating table, on which the customer tray is placed, wherein the rotating table is pivotable; an eccentric cam operatively coupled to the rotating table, wherein the cam is configured such that rotation of the cam causes the rotating table to pivot about the axis; and a driver configured to rotate a picking-up means by a rotation amount that matches the rotation of the rotating table, the picking-up means being used for picking up module ICs contained in the customer tray.